Frame rusted through club

although i understand what you are saying about new england roads being a complete mess in the winter, your statements about driving and maintaining your truck is asinine. i have had multiple vehicles - cars, suvs, and trucks INCLUDING a 1999 tacoma that i traded in before the frame recalls had started and my 2006 Tacoma is by far the worst vehicle i have had regarding frame rust. i have painted the frame when necessary even after cleaning the truck on a regular basis throughout the year and this frame looks like absolute garbage.

 

I guess I'm preachin to the choir here.... I just spent 4 winters no more than 10 miles from you. My truck, aside from a little surface rust around the beads has a solid, clean frame. So are you going to tell me that I just got lucky, and that I got a good paint job on my frame? Because I will follow up by telling you I've stripped down the paint and rust with a wire brush after the second winter here. Oh and I'll even add that I used RUSTOLEUM primer and paint. It took me an afternoon, and about 15-20 bucks in supplies.


How blatant do I have to be, You live in New England, your frame is going to go to SHIT if you do not take care of it. You probably used porous paint of some sort, I don't effin know. I know that in ANY salty environment, EVERYTHING rusts if its not taken care of.

I do however promise you that now that I'm moving to California and I will not see an ounce of rust on my truck after I do my next frame coat for my entire tour here. Lets hear some Cali folk chime in on this one... I bet you they've never had to paint or treat their frames.

To the OP, I hope the best for you with your talk with Toyota Corp...

 

I think you missed my post before so let me write it again. Look at the picture, do you see color rings o n the edges? Those are various layers of paint. That frame has one coat of factory, two coats of industrial primer and two coats of industrial paint. I had to use hammer to get through that bubble because paint itself was holding like epoxy layer. Bubble itself did not look big or much. Only after I runned sander and removed all paint from area I found this. Your point only applies if one is dealing with surface rust. This is not surface rust, look at the picture. Metal itself is corroded in that one spot. You dont see anything in surface and undercoating will never protect from that, what will do is allow to rust with out visible distortion. That is why dealers run undercoating for used trucks so nobody can spot rust.
I had been repainting various pieces. My frame has all new coat of paint as is underside of my cab. But nobody can solve frame rusting from inside. Its a defect that can not be solved by stripping all the parts sand blasting whole frame then cutting/plating rusting areas.

 

No I am pretty sure you dont know your frame is developing holes. Rusting inside does not create any mark on the outside. You have no clue what you talking about. You mixing surface rust with corrosion that happens inside the metal. I can take a picture of various pieces of my frame and you will see it looks brand new. This spot was just little paint bubble that did not look much until I did not put sander to it and stripped everything to bare metal and found this beauty. On the outside everything looked super nice.

 

So do you think that if you lived somewhere else, such as California.... where theres little to no salt.... that you would still have the same issue?

 

no one is going to deny that we as new englanders need to do more cleaning/maint to fight the road salt, but what i am saying is that with equivelent treatment to another brands frame, my tacoma frame will most likely be worse...and i know this because i have had other vehicles that i have done the same exact things to as precautionary maint, not to fix a problem.

 

Um rust does not develop from the inside out. Rust requires oxygen, which can not defy the laws of physics like moving through a solid object to get INSIDE metal. Also on the left side of the rust circle it looks like there is a ground down weld. That looks like your point of origin. Also if you live in an area where snow is normal you need to check your frame. Paint alone will not fix or prevent rust in these areas. Most paint is porous and easily chipped. Also the fact that you've painted over it a few times leads me to believe you've known about this for a while and were hoping painting over it would kill the rust... it doesn't.
As for a fix you have a few options. As someone already mentioned, por15 works great. It neutralizes rust and the paint is an epoxy paint. This means NON porous.
Undercoating works good in these areas however it must be applied at least once a year, sometimes more.
Linex or herculiner etc will last longer, and won't chip. This takes longer to do right, but is a more permanent solution.

 

No because salt accelerates rusting, however that does not mean it will accelerate rust only in the spot it touches.
Also I dont know if you realize but frame in that spot is boxed. Please tell me how did you wire brush frame inside I am curious.

and to 2008taco
Muffler has surface rust but no holes. This metal is rusting from inside out. Despite of being protected.
The advice of using Linex and herculiner is stupid. They will cover rust and be flexible enough not to show rust bubbles but have no rust inhibitors.

Basically developing hole in the frame in 5 year truck is complete BS. Surface rust yes, flaking yes but rust goign through is something unbelievable.

Now to add to this I have 16 years old Toyota vehicle that has better frame then 2007 truck.

 

Still looking in the manual where Toyota recommends the yearly repainting of the frame. Are you having trouble finding it too. Maybe just have Toyota release us a TSB and you can provide that as evidence as this is "normal" yearly maintenance.

 

im not going to read this whole post because after your first sentence theres no point.

on the first gens the frames rusted from the inside out. and if im not mistaken there are holes in the frame so oxygen can get in there. (not positve about this part though)

 

@brian...

I have no idea how old you are, and yeah I may sound like an old fart for saying this, but most of us who have been around vehicles for 25 years or so, know that build quality has gone downhill .. because we've lived it.

Now maybe if your under 25, what's "shit quality" to us may be all you've every known, and it just seems like complaining to you. But we complain because it used to be so much better.

With all the technical advances you'd think build quality would improve. But it's clear the bean counters have been cutting corners. And given that the frame of the truck is like the foundation of your home, it is never something to skimp on. It never should be this way.

Preventative maintenance is one thing. But it doesn't excuse shit quality. Ever.

 

Why not take 30 seconds out of your "busy" life and learn something.
From howstuffworks.com
For iron to become iron oxide, three things are required: iron, water and oxygen. Here's what happens when the three get together: When a drop of water hits an iron object, two things begin to happen almost immediately. First, the water, a good electrolyte, combines with carbon dioxide in the air to form a weak carbonic acid, an even better electrolyte. As the acid is formed and the iron dissolved, some of the water will begin to break down into its component pieces -- hydrogen and oxygen. The free oxygen and dissolved iron bond into iron oxide, in the process freeing electrons. The electrons liberated from the anode portion of the iron flow to the cathode, which may be a piece of a metal less electrically reactive than iron, or another point on the piece of iron itself.
The chemical compounds found in liquids like acid rain, seawater and the salt-loaded spray from snow-belt roads make them better electrolytes than pure water, allowing their presence to speed the process of rusting on iron and other forms of corrosion on other metals.


If rust developed on the inside of steel there would be no way to stop it. ever. period.



On first gens the rust developed BETWEEN 2 pieces of metal, not INSIDE. rust under paint is still surface rust as it is on the SURFACE of the metal. Also all frames are sprayed after all the holes are drilled. Vibration and poor spraying techniques allowed these areas to be more vulnerable to rust. This is why frames that showed no significant rust got undercoating instead of replacement.



As for making frames rust proof there are 2 common metals that are not as prone to corrosion.
Aluminum: strong and lightweight. Low flexibility, prone to cracking under stress. Costs many times more than mild steel.

Stainless steel: High grade is very rust resistant. Weighs considerably more than mild steel. Costs many times more than mild steel.

To give you an idea how much more it costs a 3/16" 4x8 sheet of mild steel costs 130 dollars a sheet.
A 3/16" 4x4 sheet of t304 stainless is 988 dollars a sheet. Plus requires different machining as the metal is harder to work with.

 

Sorry, but if anyone thinks that it's the owners responsibility to crawl under their truck to wire brush rust off and repaint their frame's annually is crazy. Some cars rust worse than others and Toyota has a notorious record of rusting. I've seen GM's and Fords of same age even older that I'm 100% positive the owners didn't take care of with less rust than some Toyota's. BTW doesn't Toyota void the corrosion warranty if you undercoat the truck?

 

http://www.f150forum.com/f38/2011-lariat-rust-87176/

 

so you think its acceptable to have to sand the frame of a $30k plus truck???when i was younger i never owned a car that under 100k miles and never had these issues.i agree rust happens but it should never ever happen so soon.

 

theory a side....
Look at the picture and tell me , does that looks like surface rust to you ?
Yes - NO?

I know the theory behind what rust is, I also know there are different ways metal rusts. Some are easy to stop some are not unless one sands blast hole frame to metal when its new then dips frame in paint.

BTW maybe your first gen rusted in between plates mine rusted from inside out where there was only one layer of metal but boxed frame. (just like where its rusting on 2gen truck)

 

It looks like rust pitting in a pocket trapped under your rust treatments... not surface rust for sure, but also not rust through from the opposite side of the metal as you seem to think.

If it were rusted through you could poke a screw driver through it really easy so if you wanna silence doubters, do that and post a pic of it. Couldn't do any more harm... could it?

 

Ya just smack it with a hammer. If rusted enough to be showing on the other side, you will see it. I believe many dealers use this as the test for frame rust. You prob want to bring it into the dealer first to document on their end its current condition.

 

UNDERCOAT!!!!

I live in the salt capital of Canada...have it done yearly by a reputable store...my 07 shows no signs of rust. It's called preventative maintenance...as some else says you can't blame anyone but yourself...
metal+air+moisture= RUST
Don't think you can blame the paint or Toyota for that matter... if you drive it then it should have rock chips etc, that means no paint..see above equation